Company profile

SunExpress - your Holiday specialist since more than 25 years

The Company

SunExpress was founded in October 1989 as a subsidiary of the two industry leading airlines Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa. Today, SunExpress carries around seven million passengers per year. With its 25 years of experience and thus the long-term commitment in the traffic between the home markets of Turkey and Germany, the airline has acquired the reputation of the holiday specialist even beyond Turkey.

The home base of SunExpress is in Antalya on the Turkish Riviera. The second most important base is the hub Izmir on the Aegean coast. The German branch office is located in Gateway Gardens near Frankfurt Airport, which is the base of SunExpress Deutschland GmbH, the German subsidiary of the company.

With around 3000 employees in Turkey and Germany – and as the largest employer in Antalya - SunExpress matters as a successful medium-sized airline with a strong track record of innovation and inter-cultural aspects.The airline essentially concentrates on three areas of business: international tourism, ethnic travel (including domestic Turkish flights to the most important cities of Anatolia) and the wet-lease business. Besides scheduled flights, SunExpress relies on charter business and a close cooperation with renowned as well as individual smaller tour operators. Serving more than 100 cities, the destination portfolio of the holiday airline offers a wide variety of non-stop frequencies between Europe and Turkey, Germany and holiday destinations like the Red Sea, Tunisia, the Canary Islands, the Mediterranean area or North Cyprus as well as the Sultanate of Oman.For more details about our destinations, please refer to our schedule.

History

SunExpress was founded in Antalya in October 1989 as the joint venture of one of the world’s leading airlines, Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa. Operating its first flight in 1990, the company blends the know-how of German and Turkish aviation leaders thanks to its solid shareholder structure. Operating touristic charter flights between Europe – specifically Germany – and Antalya for a long time, SunExpress became the first private airline company to offer international scheduled flights from Turkey with its first Antalya-Frankfurt flight in 2001. The timetable of scheduled services was expanded with the introduction of Izmir as second hub in 2005 with numerous flights to and from the third-largest city in Turkey.

Increasing its scheduled flights from year-to-year, SunExpress opened its 2nd base in İzmir and started to operate domestic flights in 2006. With this launch, SunExpress became the first airline company to connect İzmir with Anatolian cities with direct flights in Turkey.

The company announced a comprehensive re-branding and product enhancement project by the end of its 20th anniversary, which was celebrated at an event in Antalya on May 1st, 2010. At this event SunExpress welcomed its next 20 years with the delivery of the first of six newly purchased Boeing 737-800s and launched its new corporate identity including its new logo, aircraft livery, new corporate colours, uniforms and entire visual identity elements. SunExpress also revealed many brand new features to create extra quality and value for its customers. The launch of SunPoints – SunExpress’ frequent flyer programme – and direct flights between Anatolia and Germany for the first time in Turkey were other highlights of 2010 for SunExpress.

SunExpress was given a further boost in 2011 with the foundation of SunExpress Deutschland GmbH. The company started business operations in June 2011. Besides the Turkish destinations on the South Coast, on the Aegean, on the Black Sea and in the East of the country it also serves – with German registration – attractive destinations on the Red Sea and on the Nile in Egypt, Canary Island(Spain) since November 2011. Last year Frankfurt – Hahn and Varna (Bulgaria), and this year Batman, Bremen, Enfidha (Tunisia), Lefkosa and Strasbourg were added to the destination portfolio.

Furthermore, SunExpress also decided to invest in its building and SunExpress Plaza was built in June 2012. The new company building is “environmental friendly” and is located in a natural setting. The architectural theme of the building is transparency and naturalness, therefore each room has been designed so that it has access to natural light and fresh air. Antalya’s famous sun is also a source for clean energy inside the building. The solar panels on the roof generate enough electricity to supply power to all of the computers. SunExpress can therefore do work without harming the environment. On the exterior of the building special new “smart” glass panels have been used to allow sun rays to shine inside the building while blocking out unwanted heat to help reduce cooling costs. Antalya’s famous orange, bergamot and lemon trees have been planted in both the interior and exterior gardens.

2014 is a year full of positive and fruitful challenges and changes for SunExpress. In February the company signed a contract with Boeing for the purchase of 50 new aircraft. Firm order was placed for 40 Boeing 737-800NG and Boeing 737-8 Max as well as ten options. With this purchase SunExpress set the course for the future: For further profitable growth and healthy development. The new aircraft – delivered between 2015 and 2021 – will incorporate the latest technology (newest engines, winglets etc.) to deliver a 14 percent fuel-efficiency improvement over today's already low per passenger consumption on 100 flight km of only 2,7 liter.At the same time SunExpress announced also the introduction of a new fare and service concept beginning in summer 2014 based on graduated fares with different services. The passenger can chose between three fare levels, ranging from favourable priced flights without any additional service, right through to the premium offer with many extras. The service SunExpress levels are called SunEco, SunClassic and SunPremium. SunExpress takes inflight entertainment to fresh heights and becomes the first airline worldwide to introduce the wireless flight entertainment system from the Irish company “Media in Motion”. The new system allows passengers to access an onboard network via their own mobile devices (phone, laptop or Tablet) view a movie, read a newspaper or order entertainment and catering from the crew out of their seat. The choice is with the passenger – under this headline SunExpress continues to develop various options for its guests to create exactly the product they expect.